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Leading up to this day, I was nervous. We have a block of land that isn’t really ‘digger friendly’ and many people were skeptical about whether is was even possible to drive a digger up to the house given the steep, uneven ground. So instead of hiring a professional digging company, we decided to give it a go ourselves with the help of someone to drive the digger. Sounds like a genius idea, right?

Actually, we didn’t really have to put in new drainage, we don’t have a problem with damp but it could happen in the future with a sub-terrain house so we thought that doing it now, while the garden is already a disaster is much better than doing it later.

So yesterday, this was delivered: This morning, Johan, a colleague of Fredrik’s came to drive this bad boy and get digging. I went out with Lina and Elliot, as I was nervous and while I was out, this happened:

Yep… the digger had sprung a leak so the mechanics had to come out and fix it. Despite being fixed and every effort to get it up the hill, it wasn’t happening, so the only option was to go up the stairs, like this:

So, a visit from the mechanics and a set of stairs later (and plenty of swearing from Johan) and we made it past one obstacle, we were on the house level. Next obstacle to get around the back. Next was a couple of hours of this:

After a near miss with the house, there was a hallelujah moment:

SUCCESS! But the reality was it was now 17:00 and the digging for drainage hadn’t begun. Oh well… the boys got cracking and I continued hiding out inside watching The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

One of the things I said to Fredrik about doing the drainage is that I really didn’t want to lose these beautiful rhododendron bushes:

I popped out to see how they were going and this is what I see:

They were the next victims of the drainage. But actually, they did try to save them but despite all efforts to move them, this is what was left:

So…. while I sit here and write this blog they are out there digging away. Such dedication, I am very impressed. I would have given up at the mechanic….

When I look back at photos it is hard to believe that not so many months ago, this was the back of the house:

Now it is this:

I am pretty proud of what we are doing, just wait until my next update about the interior… it is going to be a dream! 🙂

It has been a busy week… absolutely exhausting. I will add more posts with the other things we have accomplished later but first, the big one… the bathroom!

We have had some help from Fredrik’s Dad and that man is a working machine!! It has been so good to have him here and he really likes to do things right, a bit of a perfectionist, which makes me feel secure that everything is being done to the highest standard. This bathroom is our small bathroom upstairs which we will use until we start working on our big lux bathroom downstairs.

It is a really small room and we are just going to keep it basic. The trick to making a small bathroom feel bigger? Use large tiles and make sure that the grout closely matches the tile colour… the less lines the more open, it will give the illusion of more space. So I have chosen large floor tiles in grey colour, they are 600mm x 300mm and big white wall tiles which are 550mm x 300mm, plus a feature if white mosiac tiles in the shower. We will have basic white furniture. Finished photos to come in some weeks, after Fredrik’s Dad comes back to help finish up! 🙂

The mosaic:

Wall and floor tiles:

All pipes were from 1959 so it was important to find and replace them all. So we did that and then have laid the floor. Next steps are floor heating, walls spackle, tiles, then connection of plumbing and furniture.

Finally, the wall is all down. In just 1 hour today we turned two bedrooms and a living area in to an open plan space which will be the new kitchen and living area. It feels massive now, super excited that the master plan is starting to become a reality. I can’t wait until we raise the ceiling and put in the ceiling windows… it is going to look amazing!

Here is a video of our demolition, you can see the before, during and after. 1 hour of work in 2 minutes…

Today we were busy little bees! We had some helpers from Västervik in the form of Fredrik’s Mum and Brother. The extra muscle definitely made a difference today, the wall is only about half way down and OMG does one wall result in a LOT of wheelbarrows full of rubble! I started off by cleaning out the room where the heating pump is currently located as tomorrow the removal of this pretty thing in the pic below is happening. Is it only me or does this look like something from a horror film?

Otherwise… this is pretty much what happened today summed up in to a 10 second film:

Now that our holidays have started it is time to really get cracking. We move in to the house in 3 weeks, so we need to make the inside a little bit more livable. We have prioritised one room downstairs which will be our temporary bedroom so we have done a quick paint job and thrown in some cheap floorboards. All experienced renovators tell us a fresh bedroom is REALLY important, so we have listened.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming, but we just need to keep focused and take it one step at a time.

Check out the photos of our progress:

The temporary bedroom:

Before:

Is Fredrik renovating or Breaking Bad with Heisenberg?

It is a bit hot in plastic overalls:

Filling up the holes:

A coat of paint:Floorboards in:

Just some skirting boards left and we can sleep in here… oh… and a new light!!

Some other happenings on the constructions site have included:

Deliveries galore from Beijer:

A much anticipated bin, the amount of rubbish is just ridiculous!

Fredrik aka McGyver decided to make it easier to get stuff in the bin so instead of walking down the stairs, he constructed this little platform for us to throw the rubbish from. The boy is a genius.

Today we had Nina over to show her the house and she was pretty keen to get in to some demolition, so we let her loose on the downstairs area. This room we are doing a quick tidy up with a coat of paint and floor boards so we have a relatively fresh room to sleep in when we first move in, until our bedroom is ready.

So we started with this room:

Carefully removed the skirtings first:

Then Nina got hold of this:

And this happened:

I also had a bit of a go at it:

Once the wardrobe was out, we began to remove the disgusting orange carpet only to uncover some tiles which look like they are brand new!

It was a pretty fun day and anyone who messes with me… I have Nina on my team, watch that video of her with that sledge hammer… be afraid! After photos coming soon!